Politics of East European Area Studies

by Gareth Dale

"Following the end of the Cold War and European Union enlargement, in what sense does Eastern Europe continue to exist as a meaningful geo-political concept? In addressing this question, contributors to this volume - Alex Cistelecan, Robert Bideleux, Katalin Miklóssy and Dieter Segert - tease out the implications for an 'Area Studies' approach to the region. They examine its contradictory situation within discourses of 'orientalisation': on one hand, posited as the 'underdeveloped' pendant to its western neighbours; on the other, largely Christian by religion and an integral part of a...